


Heaven's Light in Dead of Night

by photonromance



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, The Hierarchy of Angels, angel!John
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-03-26 18:17:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3859840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/photonromance/pseuds/photonromance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Angel comes to Harold and it's the most terrifying experience of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was asked to bring these separate pieces together and I figured AO3 was just the place for it. The story of how John, or The Archangel, fell for a Human programmer that only wants to save the world.

It’s the Machine. She’s beautiful. Awake. And she brings these Numbers. A way to save people. To change the world. And that’s out of order. 

Harold is asleep at his desk when a new Number comes in and as he sits up, bleary eyed and slow, the room fills with blinding light. Harold is more confused than frightened. 

Until he’s grasped around the arms and hauled out of his chair. “No please!” He cries, kicking out as best he can. 

It’s not enough, he’s moved across the room and slammed into the wall. Pain sears along his spine, his vision dimming briefly. The light is almost bearable that way. 

“Take what you want,” Harold pleads against hard hands and the all consuming light, “I have another Number, please!” 

The hands on his arms loosen just a fraction before they clamp even harder. “The numbers are not your concern.” The voice that rumbles at him is deep and might even have been beautiful if Harold weren’t so afraid. 

“I can save them!” The light hurts his eyes, even closed, and he tries to turn his face away, desperate. “I can save these people, they don’t have to die!” 

The hands on his arms fall away and the light dims abruptly. Harold cringes away until a gentle hand touches his shoulder. “Save them?” The voice asks softly. 

Harold uncurls, but slowly, heart still pounding in his ears. It’s a man, tall and very handsome, dark haired and pale eyed. 

“What?" 

"You said you were going to save them.” The Man says. It’s the same rough voice that came from the light and Harold is beyond lost. 

“The.. the Numbers are in danger, or causing it, and I- I try to help them. Or stop them." 

The Man is looking at him curiously, almost… confused. "You want to save their lives.” 

It appears they’re both lost. 

“Who are you?” Harold dares, uncurling fully when it’s clear he won’t be struck.   
The man looks back down at him, confusion wiped away. His mouth falls into a hard line and he steps away from where he had pinned Harold to the wall. “I am Michael, an Archangel. I was sent here to stop your work.” 

“An… an angel?” Harold presses his palms back against the wall, his knees turned to water. “You’re a- No. It’s not-” He very nearly falls. 

The man pins him back with a hand on his shoulder. It’s steadying, but he’s not paying attention to Harold. “They sent me to kill a man trying to save lives?” He murmurs and Harold gapes at him. 

“Kill me?” He breathes. 

“Not now.” The man- angel- waves his free hand at Harold, still staring off into the library, “I need to speak with-” He pauses and looks at Harold, hard. It’s a curious sensation, blue eyes looking  _through_  him, dredging up every sin he’s ever committed. Ever considered. “You lay low.” He says firmly, “We’re not though.” 

Harold flinches back and he’s blinded by another flash of light. Vision bleached white, he slides down the wall to sit, hard. “Kill me.” He repeats, a whisper in the silence, “An angel is going to kill me.”

_____________________

Harold is sitting in church when the Angel returns.

Three weeks since the Angel made his threat and vanished, Harold has been to every church, mosque, temple, and religious site in a five mile radius. He’s been desperate for answers. However, no one seems to know how to stop an Angel. Or get rid of one.

By the end of the third week, Harold has resigned himself to his end. He’s made his arrangements and gone over all of his contingency protocols.

At the start of the night, he dressed warmly and made his way down the street to a nice little church. The altar is quite lovely and the Father is lighting candles for evening mass when there comes a soft rustle from the pew behind him.

“Please don’t make a mess.” Harold says softly, “I don’t want the Father to have to clean up after you.”

“I learned more about you while I was gone.” The angel still sounds rough but he’s making a concious effort to be quiet.

Harold folds the book in his lap under his hands. “I’m not interested in drawing this out.” He hisses, “Do your work.”

“You are terribly eager to die.”

Harold bows his head as best he can, stiffly. “I’m tired.” He breathes. A young woman with a veil pinned over her hair walks by and he falls silent until she is kneeling at the altar to pray.

“I have been doing this as long as I can, as much as I can on my own. I’m tired of being too late. Not pursuasive enough. One word wrong.” He sits back and Harold can feel the Angel’s breath on the back of his neck. “I don’t know what’s beyond this, but surely it cannot be as painful as this life.”

“You have pins in your spine.” The Angel says leaning even closer, his lips just a few inches from Harold’s ear, “Your best friend was killed in the same incident. No wife, no girlfriend. No family to speak of. You’re alone. Just you and your Machine.”

“Do you delight in my pain?” Harold hunches in on himself. “I’m alone. I am tired. You want me dead, do your work.” He’s getting frustrated. He came here to be murdered, not relive the pitiful scraps of the life that led him here.

“Your Machine is still producing numbers.”

That’s it.

Harold stands, unsteady. His cane clatters against the pew as he fumbles for it and pulls himself to his feet. “If you want to talk about the Machine, that’s against my rules.”

By the time he reaches the aisle, the Angels is there to stop him. He’s just as tall as Harold remembers but his hand seems deceptively slender on Harold’s chest.

“You misunderstand me.” He says steping into Harold’s space to keep his voice low, almost inaudible. Perhaps he does not want heaven to hear him. “I am not here to kill you, Harold Finch, I am here because I want to help you save humanity.”

_____________________

The Angel becomes something of a fixture in Harold’s life. He shows up when Numbers come and vanishes when the cases are finished.

But sometimes… Sometimes The Angel doesn’t leave right after. Sometimes he perches on the back of a sagging couch and watches Harold read across the room.

Sometimes, like today, he asks Harold to read to him. He pinches his mouth up small. “Aren’t you supposed to be all knowing?” He asks, all sharpness and irritation.

They were too late today.

The Angel kicked down the door and launched himself back and away to pin Harold under his weight.

He wasn’t fast enough. Harold still got a snapshot view of a familiy of four slaughtered on their sitting room floor. The father’s brains painted across the ceiling where he had finished with himself.

Harold didn’t vomit, didn’t cry. He looked up at the Angel trying to protect him from the sight and found his insides empty. “I will notify the police.” He said, his voice hollow to his own ears.

The authorities informed, Harold made it three blocks before his knees gave out and he collapsed to the sidewalk. He hadn’t eaten in hours, nothing in his belly to sick up, but his body gave it go.

The Angel held his shoulders and helped him stagger to a cab. He hadn’t spoken since then, just plucked a book from the shelf as he passed and curled up on his favorite little reading chair. The Angel had taken his perch shortly after, watching him.

Now the Angel cocked his head and looked at him, confused. “You have not seen so much death before, have you?” He asks.

Harold shuts his book and clambers up. “It’s late for a new number,” He says instead of answering, “I’m going home. You get some rest.”

Halfway to the door, there is a familiar rustling sound and a hand settles over his eyes. The Angel’s hand is under his glasses and his free hand holds Harold by the waist. “I can make you forget.” He says softly, not seductive in the least, “I can take the memory from you if it pains you so much.”

“No.” Harold chokes out, “No, don’t.”

“Not without your permission.” The Angel agrees.

“If you wipe away every time I make a mistake, I risk repeating it with no idea of the concequences.”

The Angel is still holding him and Harold can’t help but enjoy the warmth a little. It’s been so long since anyone held him so close. It’s… nice. “May I let you sleep?”

“What-” Harold tries to turn, look at the Angel, but he’s held firm, the hand on his waist tightening.

“I know you aren’t sleeping. Not well. Often not at all. Tonight is going to be especially hard for you. I think you plan to work when you reach your safehouse. You don’t even intend to try.”

It’s true, all of it. But that doesn’t make it any easier to hear. “I try.” He croaks, his throat tight, “But what if a number comes and I’m asleep? Or they find me? And even if I sleep, the- The nightmares- It’s not worth the risk.”

“I’ll watch over you.” The Angel says softly. He rests his temple on the top of Harold’s head. “I don’t need to sleep. You do. What if there is another Number tomorrow? I’ll need you in top form.”

“You’ll wake me if- if anything-”

“No nightmares.” The Angel promises, “Just tonight. After tonight, if you sleep well, I’ll stay. Keep watch over you. Wake you if the dreams become too much.”

“And if I don’t sleep?” Harold challenges.

It’s too easy to just agree. Just go along and he needs something to push against.

“If you don’t sleep well tonight I won’t bother you about it any longer.” Something like a smile is pressed into Harold’s hair.

Surely not.

Surely this stone eyed Angel does not smile.

“Fine.” Harold agrees and the Angel allows him to slip out of his hands, “One uncomfortable night will be worth it if you’ll leave me be.” He tries to sound harrassed, bothered.

Instead Harold is relieved. A night of dreamless sleep is more than he could dare ask for any more.

_____________________

Harold sleeps just fine. He continues to do so, the Angel perching in various bedrooms in various safe houses and keeping watch over him. What exactly about him keeps the nightmares at bay, Harold can’t quite say. He isn’t terribly imposing. Always so soft spoken and careful to never exert any tendril of his strength that might harm Harold. But perhaps that is exactly why Harold feels… dare he admit to it… safe, when the Angel is around. More Numbers are surviving, escaping certain death, and Harold has never been so happy.

And then the Angel is gone.

For three weeks, the Angel is gone. Numbers come and Harold struggles to keep up, struggles to survive. He hadn’t realized how much he depended on the Angel until he had no one to call. And how could he call? The Angel didn’t have a phone. Didn’t live anywhere Harold could reach him. What was left?

Prayer?

Harold put it firmly out of his mind the third day. By the third week, he was considering it much more strongly. A number down, though barely (There was no one Harold could have check on them but the police and that took more time than the Angel ever did.) and he was putting on his coat.

The church, the little church where the Angel had come to kill him, was empty, just a half dozen candles flickering at the altar.

Kneeling was painful, very nearly too much, but he did it anyway. Looking up at the altar, dimly lit and shadowed, Harold found himself at a loss. What was he supposed to say?

_‘God, I’m not sure if I believe you’re there, but if you are please send back my Angel. I need him.’_

Was he to ask this of the being that had apparently decided he was to be killed? But what was there left? Crushed, Harold covers his face with his hands and focuses on trying to breathe. He had done this without the Angel before. Surely he could do it again.

“But I can’t.” Harold says softly, breath catching on a sob, “I can’t do this without him.”

Harold stays until his eyes are dry and his breathing is back under control. It isn’t much, but if he intends to carry on he’ll need to be in control again. Righting his coat, he leaves, heart much heavier than when he arrived.

On the steps outside, he accosted by a man in a ragged coat. “Pardon me.” Harold excuses himself, stepping out of the way as best he can.

“ _Finch._ ”

He stops dead. “Angel?”


	2. Chapter 2

John was his Angel, he was accustomed to lingering over Harold until he slept and then keeping watch from the sitting room or a chair in the corner while he dreamed.

Human, he could not do the same. When he tried the first time he woke up slumped in the chair with a crick in his neck. Harold chided him the next morning, rubbing his neck for him and pouring his first cup of coffee.

“I need to watch over you.” John insists as Harold begins to prepare breakfast.

“You need to sleep.” Harold reminds him, “If you’re human, you need to sleep, that’s the way we operate.”

It takes a few weeks to get comfortable with the idea. Lying down in loose clothing specifically to fall into a semi-paralyzed coma for a few hours was disquieting.

Harold helps. He helps John pick out the kind of mattress he likes most and makes sure he has plenty of pillows wherever they are. But it’s still… off, somehow.

“I don’t like that I can’t watch over you.” He explains tentatively one afternoon. He’s monitoring a Number and talking to Finch over the comms. It’s easier like that, talking to Harold without those intense blue eyes watching him like he can see through John.

“If it’s so upsetting, perhaps you should sleep with me.” Harold says softly after a short break in the conversation. John considers the offer as the Number leaves their apartment and he moves to follow.

Number sorted, John returns to the Library to check on Harold. It’s purely habit by now but he’s reminded of Harold’s offer when the man turns pink on seeing him. “I wasn’t sure if I should wait for you.” He mumbles, tucking a few papers into place and avoiding John’s eyes.

“I would like to sleep with you.” John says abruptly, tilting his head when Harold goes scarlet. “Did I misspeak?”

Harold clears his throat delicately before speaking. “The phrase ‘sleeping with’ someone can mean platonic sleeping, such as I proposed, lying down to together to sleep or a more… physical arrangement.”

“Sex?” Harold makes a funny little noise and John smiles. “I’m aware of the concept, Harold. Humans are kind of obsessed.” Harold looks away pointedly and John realizes what he’s not saying.

John takes a few steps closer and tips his chin up with a fingertip. Harold is sweet when he’s blushing, John decides and leans down to kiss him, just a brush of lips. It’s a good look on him. “I would not be opposed to sex either.” John tells him quietly, nuzzling into his cheek. “But we’ll get there in our own time. For now, I just want to make sure you’re safe.”


End file.
